COST OF NATIONAL HEROES.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 5 October 1901, Page 4

COST OF NATIONAL HEROES.

A hundred thousand pounds for “Bobs” is not (remarks a London paper) perhaps an extravagant investment. A ►trong man in a great nation is worth much more than that, and the richest country in the world will not begrudge a generous grant to' the man who has faced grave peril for it again and again. The Radicals will be pleased, no doubt, that no countless race of descendants will live on the heroism of the hero of Kandahar. It is not always the hero who gets the profits of his heroism. The Duke of Norfolk a few years ago severed a link in a chain which stretched back to Flodden Field, where an ancestor of the Duke performed a feat of valour for which he was awarded £4O a year for ever. That “for ever” has cost tho nation £15,000, and would have cost it thousands more if tho Duke of Norfolk had not commuted the pension for £BOO. It is unromantic, perhaps, to reckon tho value of our heroes in hard cash, but it may not be altogether useless to compare tho national valuation of heroism yesterday and to-day. If Lord Roberts is to have £IOO,OOO, Lord Nelson, with his descendants, has cost us nearly six times as much. The victor of Trafalgar, as is fitting, stands at the head of England’s roll of heroism. Tho Lord Nelson of to-day is still reaping a rich harvest of gold from the genius and courage of the Lord Nelson of history. He succeeded to his title before he was quite old enough to understand the meaning of Trafalgar, but he has learnt the meaning since, for Trafalgar has meant to him more than £250,000. For G 5 years Lord Nelson, who lives in a house built by a grateful nation for the hero of Trafalgar, has profited at the rate of £IOO a week from the events which stirred the world 100 years ago. Half a million a century is tho coat to Lord Nelson to posterity, unless some grateful peer or some daring Parliament should bring tho pension to an end. The Wellington balance-sheet, as things stand at now, is heavier, but the present Duke of Wellington is the last of his line who will grow rich on tho pluck of the Iron Duke. England has already paid, ci'her to tho first Duke or his descendants, over £750,000 sterling. The Duke was granted two annuities _of £2,000 for himself and his next two heirs, and the pension will run until tho dcatli of the present Duke. The first grant was for Talavcra, a battle which has thus cost something like £IBO,OOO, and the second grant, which came only two years later, lias brought tho annual payments up to now to about £360,000.